Traditionally, baby strollers have been used to push an infant slowly on a relatively hard, smooth floor or sidewalk. As a result, the strollers were made small and light. These strollers work well enough at slow speed, but are extremely unwieldy and even dangerous on rough surfaces or at higher speeds.
As parents have become more health conscious in recent times, jogging and fast walking has become a popular pastime. Because baby strollers were not designed to be operated at high speed or on rough terrain, parents could jog or fast walk only when another person was available to baby-sit. As any parent knows, it is not always easy to find babysitters, so the ability of the parent to stay in shape by jogging or fast walking was severely limited.
Even for non-jogging parents, the need for an improved baby stroller has been apparent. The small, plastic wheels customarily used for baby strollers are almost useless when it is desired to walk with an infant in a grassy park or on a rough road or sidewalk. Parents end up not walking with the infant at all or only walking in limited areas.
All-terrain baby strollers have been designed to overcome these problems. These strollers typically employ much larger wheels, often large bicycle tires. The stroller frame and frame connections are constructed to be stronger and larger to handle the heavy duty use they may receive. It is now quite common to see a parent pushing an infant while jogging, fast walking or even just slow walking in grassy, bumpy -areas or over other rough terrain.
These new strollers are sometimes equipped with conventional caliper brakes actuated by a hand lever to help slow and stop the stroller. Once stopped, however, there has been no effective way to insure the stroller does not roll away while the parent removes his or her hands from the stroller, such as to tie a loose shoe lace, other than a tether line attached at one end to the stroller and at the other end to the parent. Of course, the parent could continue to apply the caliper brake, but doing so is difficult or impossible in many situations, and inconvenient in most others. If the stroller is not equipped with a caliper brake, no sure way exists to prevent the stroller from rolling away, especially when parked on an incline.
It can be appreciated that a substantial need exists for a park brake for use on a stroller, especially an all-terrain stroller. The present invention provides such a park brake. The brake has a simple and inexpensive construction, is easy to use and provides a reliable and safe brake.